Friday, June 5, 2015

Atlanta Cop Let Suspect Escape

ATLANTA — Atlanta police have arrested one of their own after they say he intentionally allowed a suspect in an April killing to escape through a window while other officers tried to catch him.

Officer Tommy Williams, 24, was arrested May 21 and faces charges of violation of oath of public office, obstruction of an officer, and hindering apprehension of a criminal, Atlanta police said in a statement. Williams was suspended without pay and is to have an emergency hearing with Chief George Turner.But it is not a violation of oath when they kick a door down and blow away a grandmother in a no-knock, wrong address drug raid (rem,ember that years ago?).

A public defender listed as Williams’s lawyer in court records did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Williams is out of jail on bond and has a preliminary hearing set for Friday.

Williams was with other officers who were trying to catch Jabri Mathis, who faces charges including murder in an April 3 killing, according to court records. A lawyer for Mathis did not immediately return a call seeking comment on those charges.

Officers had surrounded a house, and Williams was to cover one side of the house. An officer in the rear of the house told other officers he saw Mathis running away from the house and asked Williams if he had seen him. Williams told the officer he hadn’t, according to a police report.

When officers caught Mathis a short time later, they were wondering how it was possible for him to get out a window when that side of the house was being watched, the report says.

Mathis, who was in a patrol car, told the officers ‘‘he let me go’’ and ‘‘I ran right past him.’’ He told officers he knew Williams, who was like an uncle to him, the report says.

The police report also says Williams was given a notice to look out for Mathis during roll call about a month before Mathis’s arrest and never said anything about knowing him.

--more--"With all due respect, I see this as pure propaganda so that the public will come to accept the continuing oppression from the police. It's either that or let the bad guys escape and hurt you, so if there are a couple of oooopses along the way, oh well.
"US police shoot, kill 385 so far in 2015" Washington Post June 01, 2015

WASHINGTON — At least 385 people were shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal killings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.

‘‘These shootings are grossly underreported,’’ said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving law enforcement. ‘‘We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information.’’

A national debate is raging about police use of deadly force, especially against minorities.

To understand why and how often these shootings occur, the Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police in 2015, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty. The Post looked exclusively at shootings, not killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody.

About half the victims were white, half minority, the review found. But the demographics shifted sharply among the unarmed victims, two-thirds of whom were black or Hispanic. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population where the shootings occurred.All right, I want to point something out here. Look how quickly the authority-supporting jewpre$$ turned the issue into a divisive one over race? However you cut it, the cops are not discriminatory. It was half-white, half-black. They can do all the figuring and adjusting they want (figures lie and liars figure, that's what I was always told -- especially when it comes to propaganda pre$$), but the same set of numbers works the opposite way. Doesn't it mean a larger swath of area saw the white half killed?Anyhow, we all need to get down because the cops are letting the shots fly.

"Cleveland reportedly in deal on police conduct; Abuses had been noted by Justice Department" by Mitch Smith and Matt Apuzzo New York Times May 26, 2015

CLEVELAND — Cleveland has reached a settlement with the Justice Department about what federal authorities said was a pattern of unconstitutional policing and excessive use of force, people briefed on the case said Monday.

The settlement, which could be revealed as early as Tuesday, comes days after a judge declared a Cleveland police officer not guilty of manslaughter for climbing onto the hood of a car and firing repeatedly at its unarmed occupants, both of them black.

The verdict prompted a day and night of protests and reignited discussions about how police officers treat the city’s African-American residents.

************

Cleveland’s streets have stayed calm since Saturday. The details of the Justice Department settlement were not immediately available, but in similar negotiations in recent years, the Justice Department has required cities to allow independent monitors to oversee changes in police departments. Settlements are typically backed by court orders and often call for better training and revised use-of-force policies.

The Justice Department opened an inquiry into the Cleveland Division of Police months after the 2012 shooting of the unarmed occupants in a car, and it issued its report in December. Cleveland is one of several cities, including Ferguson, Mo.; New York; and Baltimore, that have become the focal points of a national debate about policing and race.

The Justice Department has opened nearly two dozen investigations into police departments during the Obama administration. Federal investigators found patterns of unconstitutional policing in cities including Seattle, Newark, Albuquerque, and Ferguson.I find laughable that federal thugs are investigating the locals. I've got one word for you: Todashev.

Federal authorities recently said they would investigate the Baltimore Police Department after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died of injuries he suffered while in police custody.Coverage has more or less stopped swinging on that. Wouldn't want to ruin it for O'Malley.

In Seattle, the Justice Department inquiry led local officials to overhaul training and focus on how officers can calm tense situations without using force.

The Justice Department’s report on the Cleveland police was among its most scathing, finding that they engaged in a pattern of “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force.”

Investigators said police officers unnecessarily used deadly force; used excessive force against mentally ill people; and inappropriately used stun guns, chemical sprays, and punches. It detailed tactical blunders by the police and said officers too often imperiled bystanders when they used force.

The Justice Department also criticized a “structurally flawed” discipline policy that it said made it too difficult to punish officers for improperly using force.

The report highlighted one case in which officers kicked an African-American man in the head while he was handcuffed and on the ground, then did not report using force in the arrest.

“Supervisors throughout the chain of command endorse questionable and sometimes unlawful conduct by officers,” Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department’s top civil rights prosecutor, said in December. “Officers are not provided with adequate training, policy guidance, and supervision to do their jobs safely and effectively.”What are the trips to Israel for then?

The report was not compiled in time to cover the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was playing with a replica gun in a park in November when police shot him. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to charge Cleveland officers in his death or in the case of Tanisha Anderson, 37, who died after she was restrained face down on the pavement.

For Cleveland, a settlement averts a court fight and the appearance that city leaders are resisting change.

Mayor Frank Jackson faces a recall petition from city activists who say he has not done enough to prevent police abuses. The Justice Department has called him a full partner in its effort to improve the police department....

"Cleveland police accept use of force limits in deal with feds" by Mitch Smith and Matt Apuzzo New York Times May 27, 2015

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Police Department, which has become a flash point in the racially charged debate over police tactics, has agreed to follow some of the most exacting standards in the nation over how and when its officers can use force, and it will accept close oversight to make sure those rules are not ignored, city and federal officials said Tuesday.I'm tired of the framing, and I'm sure the African-Americans are, too.

The agreement is part of a settlement with the Justice Department over what federal officials have called a pattern of unconstitutional policing and abuse in Cleveland. The Justice Department found in a review released late last year that police officers here used stun guns inappropriately, punched and kicked unarmed people, and shot at people who posed no threat. The episodes often went unreported and uninvestigated, investigators found.

“There is much work to be done, across the nation and in Cleveland, to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve where it has eroded, but it can be done,” said Vanita Gupta, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today’s agreement really should serve as a model for those seeking to address similar issues in their communities.”I don't think the trust in government will ever be won back. Too many lies for too long with too much suffering and inequality. They failed. They had their chance and they failed.

At a time when the Obama administration has bemoaned the lack of data surrounding the use of force by the police, even when people are killed, Cleveland has agreed to document every time officers so much as unholster their guns. Police supervisors will investigate the uses of force in much the same way that officers investigate crimes.Cops will be feeling like criminals. This is really going to f*** them up.

**************

The cases last year of Eric Garner, who died after a police chokehold in New York, and Michael Brown, who was shot and killed after a scuffle with a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., ignited the most vigorous national debate on policing since the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. The deaths were followed by high-profile cases in Baltimore; North Charleston, S.C.; and elsewhere. The cases often revealed longstanding problems inside the departments and deeply rooted tensions between police officers and African-American communities.That's what gets me. These things seem to be repeated and repeated as the decades pass, and yet we are told now much progress has been made by the political cla$$ and their propagandists.

The new rules in Cleveland prohibit officers from using force against people for simply talking back or as punishment for running away. Pistol whipping is prohibited, and so is firing warning shots, the agreement says. The city has agreed to allow an independent monitor to track its progress. If the city does not put into effect the changes called for in the settlement, a federal judge has the authority to demand them.

Cleveland also agreed to hire a civilian to lead its internal affairs unit and to appoint an inspector general to investigate police misconduct and analyze policies and trends. The federal authorities believe that those changes, along with an internal panel assigned to review use-of-force cases, will ensure that police keep accurate records and conduct genuine investigation. The city will also form a civilian advisory panel to review policies and advocate for better community relations.

Mayor Frank G. Jackson said the settlement allowed the city to make changes quickly and broadly. The document “gives us the structure and the tools we need to have comprehensive reform rather than doing one thing at a time.” He said the city had already begun outfitting officers with body cameras and trying to work more closely with community groups.I'm starting to think that was the purpo$e of all these events, be they staged and scripted hoaxes or real.

The report calls for the department to establish a coordinator for data collection not only on use of force but also for searches and seizures, and it allows the independent monitor and Justice Department to review and approve the “stop and search” data collection system.

Some use-of-force data will be collected digitally. Stun guns, for instance, leave a digital record when they are used, and the settlement calls for periodic checks to ensure that a weapon’s data matches reports filed by officers. The document calls for investigations when an officer’s account and the stun gun’s internal record do not match. In other cases, officers will be required to self-report use of force, such as when they remove a gun from its holster, making documentation more difficult to monitor.

Still, many political and civic leaders praised the extensive requirements for data collection, much of which will be made available to the public and used by the independent monitor to assess compliance with the settlement.

“I think anything is open to some level of manipulation,” said US Representative Marcia L. Fudge, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Cleveland. “But it’s better than what we have now, which is zero. I can’t imagine that all of these problems will be fixed overnight.”Nope.

Some experts, however, questioned whether the data requirements went too far. Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore policeman who is now an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said officers were already overburdened with paperwork. He said requiring documentation of every instance of a gun leaving the holster — a fairly common occurrence in some urban areas — could discourage officers from pulling out their weapons even in justifiable situations and possibly result in the disciplining of good officers who forget to fill out a form.And more cop deaths, thus justifying further militarization with corresponding calls for gun control.

The settlement was announced days after a judge found a Cleveland police officer not guilty of manslaughter in the 2012 shooting of two unarmed occupants of a car, both of them black. The verdict prompted protests and reignited discussions about how officers treat the city’s black residents.I'm tired of typing about it.

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